For reinterpreting composition, we looked at conceptualising storyboards for scenes from a told story. Cinematography and how shots are framed in a scene is important to telling a story and building a scene for either tension, character interactions or action in the scene.
For example, an establishing shot tells the viewer where the scene is set and where the story will begin or follow from. With all these shot types, it’s important to have a beat board to start visualising your story and what main shots need to be shown. From here this is where you start developing the main shots you have in your sequence and build a storyboard around this.
Little Red Riding Hood
We worked in small groups and created shots for the script from the story of Little Red riding hood. We were tasked to think about how we could communicate visual language and play around with perspectives of the characters in the story. All the shots we had showed the characters and movement, but some of the shots could’ve followed a better camera position to show either conversation or establishing the scene.
One thing I learnt was the 180 degree rule and how it is used in film when shooting 2 characters. It is an imaginary line placed between 2 characters where the camera follows on a straight angle and at no point crosses the line. This is to show that when both characters are interacting, they both are in their own sides where the camera will show them and this doesn’t usually tend to switch making the shots logical and easy to follow conversation. The same goes to an action scene or where we see movement of a character. The scene should usually have the character moving from left to right and shouldn’t change unless intended for effect. But the character should stay from left to right to communicate that the story is progressing, whereas switching from left to right, to right to left shifts the story and shows the character going back to something in the story. So we created more shots that showed the conversation between Little red riding hood and her mother, by including the 180 degree rule.
Using what I learnt from this first half of the workshop, I was tasked to create a storyboard from 3 lines in a script, from the film “The Hunchback Notre dame.”
These shots I drew intended to show who had power and dominance in the scene. The first shot of Frollo is a medium close up at lower angle with his hand pointing to attack Pheobus, showing who is in control in the scene and showing his movement. I then wanted to build tension of Pheobus’ escape and his demise of getting hit by the arrows by showing the movement of the arrows in 2 different shots and having a break between those shots to show Frollo’s smirk on his plan inevitably succeeding.
One thing I specifically want to develop my skills on and have creative direction, is concept art. I chose a shot that was intriguing and analysed it to show how the shot creates movement between characters. This concept art by Ralph Mcquarrie for Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, shows Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader. Cinematic design is broken down into 4 elements that is used to convey meaning for each shot.
- Grouping
- Focal Area
- Balance
- Rythmn
This concept art tells a story and visually communicates an idea of whats happening in the story. We were tasked to break down and analyse how these elements have been shown in a piece of concept art that we like, so that we could use these elements for our own work and compositions for our own projects.